3 Tibetan writers in Ngaba sentenced up to 4 years in prison

Dharamsala, January 4 – A Chinese court in Tibet’s Ngaba region have sentenced three Tibetans up to four years in prison for “inciting activities to split the nation.” The Ngaba Intermediate People’s Court announced on Thursday the verdict for the three Tibetans — Jangtse Donkho, Bhudha and Kalsang Jinpa — tried on October 3 last year.

Jangtse Dhonkho and Bhudha were given four years and Kalsang Jinpa was sentenced to three years in prison, a Tibetan source told the Radio Free Asia

Citing a source, the RFA reported that the lawyers or family members of the three were allowed to speak in the court at the time of verdict.

“When the judge ordered all in the court to rise for the verdict, all three did not comply and remained seated,” the RFA quoted its source as saying.

When the judge announced that Jangste Donkho would receive a jail term of four years, he clapped his hands, the source added. The other two remained silent.

The three Tibetans –detained in June and July last year — were booked primarily for articles they wrote about the 2008 Tibetan unrest in the literary magazine ‘Shar Dungri’(Eastern Snow Mountain), which is now banned and its editor Tashi Rabten jailed in Barkham County.

Buddha, aged 34, is a medical doctor by profession who works as an editor and writer in his spare time. He was arrested on June 26 from the hospital where he worked.

Dhonkho was born in 1978 and established a highly-regarded Tibetan daycare center with his friends in their home area of Khyungchu in Ngaba. He was arrested from his home on June 21, 2010.

Kalsang Jinpa, a poet and writer originally from Sangchu county, Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Gansu, was arrested from his home by the Ngaba Public Security Bureau on July 19. He studied for a short time at Kirti monastery in exile.